


my heart is away (all i'm really asking for is you)

by kiriya



Category: Kamen Rider Build, Kamen Rider Zi-O
Genre: Canon Divergence - Kamen Rider Zi-O, Implied Banjou Ryuga/Kiryuu Sento, M/M, Trans Male Character, implied soulmates, narutaki voice This Is All Zi-O's Fault, post-build but pre-zio, takumi voice Don't Ask Adult Questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 03:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16484774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiriya/pseuds/kiriya
Summary: In a timeline where Kamen Rider Build has been erased, Banjou Ryuga can’t help but feel like something is amiss in his life. He’s just not sure what.





	my heart is away (all i'm really asking for is you)

There’s a shift in him one day. Something grows in his chest, takes roots, and starts to aches. Like he’s lost something dear to him, or like maybe he doesn’t belong here.

It happens in one, brief moment: the same moment he wins a match. The crowd cheers and stomps in their seats, his blood buzzes with the adrenaline of victory. He steps out of the ring to see his girlfriend, Kasumi, waiting for him in the sidelines with a smile.

Kasumi slips her hand up the side of his face and kisses his sweaty cheek.

She smiles at him, and Ryuga’s surprised by how lively she is.

.

He’d been zoned out, watching the news. Why? It’s not like he doesn’t care about politics, but there’s a lot he doesn’t understand about it. Most of the report goes over his head. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling he knew the man on screen from somewhere… A martial arts patron, maybe? He spends a considerable amount of time scowling about this, when Kasumi walks up behind him and slides her arms around his shoulders.

“Ryuga.”

He looks at her and the concern is written clearly in the knit of her brow.  All this feels wrong, somehow. Banjou can’t shake the feeling of being out of place.

“Ryuga,” she says, and the yearning in her voice makes him ache uncomfortably. “You’ve seemed … distant, lately.”

He has been, hasn’t he? He and Kasumi live together. They go to bed together every night. There are plenty of things Banjou Ryuga is comically bad at, like basic arithmetic and following street directions,  but being a good boyfriend isn’t one of them. But … When was the last time he made the effort to spend any real time with Kasumi, outside of their domestic routine? Banjou can’t remember, and guilts crawls uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach.

He shakes his head, hoping this fog he feels will roll off him, and tries to muster a smile.

“Don’t worry about me,” he says, taking her hand in his. “You have that super important job interview coming up, right? Focus on that.”

He runs his fingers over the tops of hers and stares. He feels like she’s gained weight, or that her skin used to be paler than this. Why?

He ignores the feeling, and kisses her cheek.

.

“Since when do you read?” Kasumi asks him, another day, when she notices the hardcover book sitting on the kitchen counter.

She picks it up, and runs her fingers over the rises in the cover where the title is, considering.

Banjou shrugs. He can’t reply with his mouth full of instant noodles. He sucks the rest of the wet noodles into his mouth, and Kasumi looks at him fondly.  

“I wanted to try something new,” Ryuga replies, trying to sound as casual as possible so she won’t press. He had typed how he was feeling into Google, and an article recommended that. It’s kinda embarrassing. “Is that so bad?”

“No,” Kasumi says, with a nonchalant shrug. “Though I thought you’d be more inclined towards books about dragons, not politics.”

“They’re important, y’know.”

She hums in agreement, but it feels like she’s not really listening, too busy examining his confounding new purchase. She turns it over, so she can see the photo of the author.

“Tawigawa Sawa,” she reads off. “She’s pretty.”

“Yeah,” Ryuga agrees. “She has one of those faces.”

The kind that makes you feel like you know them.

.

He breaks up with Kasumi.

It’s not a sudden decision. For a while, he’s felt like things haven’t been right. It’s hard, they’ve known each other since they were both teenagers, but those memories feel far away now. They've changed — he's changed — and he knows this is the right thing to do.

She takes it well, all things considered. He has a million excuses, all of them true: he doesn’t feel the way he once did, he hasn’t felt like himself lately, he needs time alone.

“It’s okay, Ryuga,” She says, but there’s a sad look in her eyes, “I’m your friend first, and if space is what you need to make you happy ... I’ll give it you.”

“I want you to be happy too,” He tells her. “So don’t wait on me, alright? Take that teaching job in Saitama.”

She puts her hand on the side of his face, and looks at him fondly.

“I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”

It feels more like a beginning than an end.

.

Ryuga looks into the mirror. He dips his chin, so he can see the top of his head better, and runs his fingers through his roots.

As if his life wasn’t weird enough already, lately. Now his hair was growing in an entirely new color? _What the fuck_?

His trainer sets up an appointment with one of the Martial Arts Association's physicians. You have a fever, the doctor says. Your body temperature is really high. Almost inhuman.

Is it weird he doesn’t have any other symptoms?

.

After waking from another nightmare (of memories that don’t belong to him, of a planet that isn’t Earth), a panic seizes him. Suddenly, he doesn’t remember what his parents look like.

He rushes out of bed into the living room, and picks up a frame, next to the TV.

It’s the same parents he’s always known: Banjou Yuri and Banjou Akihiro. They’re holding each other by the waist in their security guard uniforms, grinning like people who are young, stupid and in love should. Something about this image seems significant, but he doesn’t know what …

She had just gotten pregnant with him, right?

He sighs and puts the frame down. He goes back towards the bedroom, and picks up his cell phone

“Ryuga?”

His mom sounds caught off guard, and her voice feels him small, suddenly. He glances at the clock on the nightstand: it’s three in the morning.

“M-mom?”

“Is something wrong?”

“Yeah,” Ryuga says. Is that his voice? It sounds thick and faraway. “Kasumi and I broke up.”

He knows that’s not the reason, but he doesn’t know how else to explain to her how he’s been feeling lately.

“Oh, Ryuga,” His mother sighs. He imagines her with the withered expression she got when he got sent home from school with scrapes and bruises. There’s a beat of silence between them before she offers, “Do you want to come home?”

“Yeah,” Ryuga sighs. “I’d like that.”

Ryuga thinks he really might be going crazy.

.

He goes to see his parents in Yokohama that weekend.

He wanders through the house he grew up in like it’s a museum, picking up old photos (before his transition, of his thirteenth birthday, and him and Kasumi graduating high school together) and games he’d liked growing up. He hopes there will be something here, anything to put him back on his axis.

Maybe they moved some furniture around. Just a few inches, enough to make him feel disoriented.

Sunday morning, he’s making breakfast (a protein hardy one, of course)  while his father reads the paper. A past time he gained during the leisure of retirement, Ryuga reminds himself.

His parents are young, just shy of fifty, but still, they don’t work, floated along by money they won in a settlement ten years ago, when they got into an accident.   

This is something he’s always known, like any fact of his life, but suddenly, thinking about it has made his chest feel heavy…

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Ryuga replies, shaking his head. He hadn’t realized it, but he was scowling. ”Just thinking.”

“Uh-oh,” his dad snorts, looking up at him over the tops of his glasses with wry smirk. “About Kasumi?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, walking over from the counter with a cup of coffee. He sets it on the table between his dad and his paper.

“Well, your mother and I are here, whenever you’re ready to talk about what happened.”

Why does that make him feel _worse_ , not _better_?

His dad brings the cup to his lips without looking away from the words on the paper, but when he drinks it, his expression sours.  

“What?” Ryuga asks, looking between him and the cup. “Is it bad?”

“No, just-” He stumbles on his words, but there’s a sudden edge to his tone Ryuga’s come to be familiar with. “Not as good as usual.”

He’s lying.

.

“What!” His trainer, Kuramoto-san, yells, when Ryuga tells him he’s quitting. “I know you’re on a losing streak right now, but you’re only 23! You’ve worked so hard to get here! I knew you were an idiot, not that you were _insane!_ ”

The words sting less than they should. He feels like a strange sense of deja vu, like he’s been here before, at the end of his rope with Kuramoto-san and the MAA.

“Sorry,” Ryuga says, but doesn’t mean it. “I just feel like I need a change or something. Or maybe … this isn’t what I’m meant to be doing.”

He hates how unsure he sounds, because _he is sure_. More sure than sure that he’s ever been of anything, though there’s no logical reason behind it.  
  
Whatever. He's the type of guy who follows his gut, anyway.

“Yeah, well, suck it up. You have a contract, so, unless you were _stupid_ enough to do something to break it…”

“I’ve thrown fights for money. Does that count?”

.

On his way to a job interview, he sees a Lynks poster, wrapped around a pole on the side of the street.

They look ridiculous, with brightly-colored clothing and over-styled hairdos...

But, somethings keep him there, staring for a long, long time... The lead singer… His face…

It tugs on something in his chest.

Ryuga feels like, maybe, he’s finally being pulled in the right direction.

.

On the train, he puts in his headphones on and finds a music video for a song off their latest album, _Max Hazard._ He tilts his phone to the side, and waits for it to load…

They’re good. Like, _really good_.

.

After that, he becomes obsessed.

Ryuga listens to their music all the time, and wears Lynks shirts under his flannel button-downs. He has a Sato Taro calendar (a suggestive one), and he eats three times a week at _Cafe Nascita_ , a charming little coffee shop with a strange mix of themes: mostly Lynks and a bit of the Italian Renaissance (he thinks).

Kasumi still texts him occasionally, just to check in. The love lost makes him sad, but it’s nothing to compared to the sure feeling he’s lost something _bigger_. Like there’s an uncrossable chasm between him and his own life.

He tells Kasumi he’s made new friends: a goofy old man, and a teenager who likes to bully him.

Owner takes a liking to him. They bond over their shared love of Lynks, and he dotes on Ryuga the same way a father would (he offers him a job there, but then he tastes his coffee). It‘s familiar, but their relationship feels wrong ... Somehow ... Something about it puts him on edge. Like walking down the street he knows well, but at night when no one’s around.

Misora, though. Maybe it’s that enigmatic ache for familiarity that’s been pestering him, making him imagine things to be more than they are, but ... She feels like a sister. She’s constantly giving him a hard time — either for being a messy eater or his _stupid_ little crush on Sato Taro — but when she does, he feels more tethered to reality than he ever has.

Still, sometimes, when Misora sets his order down in front of him (her wrist, empty), he finds himself clicking out of reality again.

Ryuga, warily, thinks this place with them feels like home, even though all the details aren’t right. Just slightly askew, like he’s watching the movie of a book he’s read before.

.

By some stroke of fate, he wins a contest on the radio, along with one other person, and wins tickets to Lynks’ next concert.

He meets a man wearing mismatched shoes, who looks very out of place at an event like this (holding his shoulders close to his body, looking at everyone with thinly-veiled disdain). He looks exactly like Sato Taro, but doesn’t carry himself like Taro would at all (Banjou would know. He’s seen every music video, every interview, and every meme).

“You’re the other winner, huh? I’m Banjou Ryuga,” Ryuga says, standing up out of his seat to greet him. “You are…?”

“Overdressed, it seems…” The man says, not really focused on him, but warily eyeing the drunk crowd.

“Yeah, a little,” Ryuga agrees, looking at the pale button down, above shredded jeans mismatched shoes. There was an attempt, at least. “But you’re at a rock concert, so relax!”

Ryuga throws an arm around the other man’s shoulder, and pulls him close. It feels familiar, but after a moment, he realizes something, “What did you say your name was?”

The man sharpens his gaze, scrutinizing him. “I didn’t.”

Oddly … Ryuga finds him charming.

.

Turns out, Katsuragi Takumi’s hiring, and everything about him feels like destiny.

.

Being Takumi’s assistant shouldn’t feel as fulfilling as landing a good punch, or of the crowd screaming his name, but it feels more so.

“You’re so easy,” he sighs, with an affectionate shake of his head, as he rubs out the knots in the back of Takumi’s neck. 

He’d been overworking himself, analyzing the black-and-white stopwatches that just _appeared_ in both their pockets one day, stumped by the ‘future’ technology, but he melts under Ryuga’s touch.

“Ugh,” Takumi grunts, slumped in his chair, with all his unfinished work splayed out on his desk. His hand is over his eyes, frustrated, but Ryuga can still see the faint pinkness to his cheeks. “Don’t ruin this by talking.”

Ryuga feels warm all over. It didn’t take long for him to realize he likes Takumi. Like, _really likes him_.

Ryuga laughs. “What are you gonna do? Fire me?”

“Yes,” Takumi insists. He takes his hand from his eyes, and groans abruptly when Ryuga's strong hands reach his shoulders. “What good is an assistant who can’t make a half-decent cup of coffee?”

“I don’t know,” He replies, playing dumb. Then, he leans down, so his mouth is right to Takumi’s ear. “You tell me.”

Takumi turns his head, just to face him, and studies him carefully. "You’re a little close, don’t you think?”

“We both know I’m not very good at that.”

“No …,” Takumi says, but the reply sounds distant. He tilts his head, just slightly, so he’s closer, and his eyes flick towards Ryuga's lips. “You aren’t...”

Ryuga’s eyes meet Takumi’s, and he remembers kissing Kasumi for the first time. How nervous he felt. The thickness in his chest, his heart beating against the inside of his ribs.

This doesn’t feel like that at all.

Just like everything’s falling into place.

.

.

.

“I had a dream about you, my dear Banjou.”

“What, like, a sexy one?”

“No,” Takumi replies, not elaborating at all.

“Oh,” Ryuga replies, dejected. “What happened?”

“It was weird. You were you, and we were together, like always, but … I wasn’t me. Or maybe I was, but I was _different_. I can’t explain it.”

That’s weird. Takumi usually thinks too high of his own intelligence to admit when he doesn’t know something.

There’s a far-away look in his eye. Ryuga knows it well.  

“Hey,” Ryuga says, leaning over to press a kiss to the top of his head. Takumi looks at him, eyes shining, and his heart feels full to bursting. “We belong together. There isn’t a version of you I wouldn’t fall in love with.”

 


End file.
